Saxe.’s indignation gradually calmed in the soothing enthusiasm of explaining how he’d manage affairs were he the head of the nation, but when Sheldon and Saunders started in with a few suggestions his interest suddenly flagged and he decided the people over here knew pretty well what they were about, though things did not seem quite straight to him. Still the deep, far-sighted Centaurians were undoubtedly correct in their “aloofness,” and the war was no concern of ours anyhow. He didn’t believe the colored races would ever become civilized anyway, but Potolili was the shrewdest egotist he’d ever met, and Octrogona, the noblest ass.
“And,” continued Saxe., “over civilized and savage alike glows the one great flaming religion; all worship the powerful, fiery God, and hostilities ceased the instant the sun went down. When we finally reached the Ocstas, it was glorious moonlight, but a glacial atmosphere; we had again invaded the frigid zone.”
“The chill in the air was nothing compared to the killing frost nipping our reception,” Sheldon blurted out; “our delight in carnage, Sally, me boy, made us lose prestige with the Centaurians.”
“Yes, but a biting, raw indifference, produced a tremendous thaw,” Saxe. hastened to add; “and I, for one, gazing at the weird grandeur of the rugged Ocstas, forgot these people and their advanced, but narrow theories. They seemed petty, inconsequential, amid the vast wilderness of mighty boulders and unfathomable precipices. You should have been with us, Virgillius, love can be indulged in any moment, but to view the Ocstas at full moon, ah, magnificent! The far-reaching forest of cliffs have a singular, spectral beauty, abundantly covered all the year round with a peculiar, vivid green moss and pale, tender shrubbery. It is spring always in the strange Ocstas; there are no seasons, nothing matures or dies, perpetual spring, with the blasting ice breath of the north settled upon them for all time—something wrong, the Ocstas are unwholesome, and Sheldon intends to explore the whole range! Shouldn’t care to get lost up there,” he continued, “during my short stay I had the shivers. There is an echo, an uncanny, maddening echo, which moans the length and breadth of the range with every little breeze. It starts with a roar, diminishes to a long-drawn-out, whispering wail, as though something suffered mortal agony—no human brain could stand that any length of time. Then the water! Sheldon’s great body of fresh water! It is marvelous; a magnet, an absorbent magnet, from which nothing can stray and which eventually swallows everything.
“Possibly Sheldon’s theory concerning this body of water is correct. It looks like a reservoir, the reservoir of the earth, surrounded with a wall of perpendicular, glass cliffs, marred with gigantic fissures and crevices supposed to be the effect of time, ahem! and which Sheldon will explore at low tide. This strange shoreless ocean rouses to fearful activity during the full of the moon, roaring, booming terrifically, while great mountainous billows dash furiously against the cliffs, boiling, swirling into the great fissures, then receding with a dull, hollow sound, which throws the dreadful haunting echo. The waves form deep whirlpools, then soar upward with such force and volume you think the water will reach the sky, then deluge the earth; yet the glistening, silvery columns never break—it is monstrously impressive.
“I cautiously approached the edge of a crevice and when the water flooded high lowered a goblet. Virgillius, it was the first time I ever tasted water in my life; just what the article is we’re accustomed to ... Pure, sparkling, icy; I’ve brought a sample of the Otega to show you.” He held a bottle to the light, but it looked so clear I doubted if there was anything in it. The stopper was removed and an attempt made to pour out the liquid. Instantly we buried our noses, and Saxe. hastily flung the bottle out the window. Of all the stenches! The water had been corked for hours and the numerous gases combined in deadly fermentation. Saxe., very serious, gravely, but with the air of expecting dispute, expressed his opinion.
“That water would have exploded had it remained corked much longer,” he remarked, “which proves beyond question the correctness of my statements. It is of volcanic origin and some day there’ll be a terrific eruption, the ocean will vanish with, perhaps, a mountain crowding its cavity; however, I——”
Sheldon, flushed and furious, sprang to his feet, loudly expostulating, but Saxe. was prepared and replied pointedly. From their language I knew it was an old argument and had pretty nearly filled in the time since they viewed the Ocstas; even Saunders took a hand mixing things generally, as he always did, and all three excitedly shouted in chorus, like a trio of women. They made an awful din, but seemed happy, so I let them go it. Now why will people argue? It always creates discord and each, at the end of the mêlée, believes more firmly in his own convictions.
I sprawled contentedly in the broad window-sill flooded with sunlight and drowsed in rapturous dreams, dreams only, but of the most glorious, wondrous creature in the whole wide world.
Heaven is brief, the ardent light gradually slanted chill, and roused by a sudden prolonged silence I found my three friends suspiciously calm, but in a snorting mad condition. It was Saunders who had broken up the seance. He glowered at me and wondered if they were ever going to get anything to eat. These people certainly didn’t expect him to keep any further engagements without nourishment. He’d been up all night fooling around that d——d ocean and was exhausted, and he judged it must be near time for him to go somewhere with somebody, too.